The Warrior's Tale

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  I let him shift the subject. It was apparent he had become uncomfortable. I said: 'I'd have thought the cold would have driven them away.'

  'I've no experience with ice,' Gamelan answered. 'But when I saw the ice field, it came to me that a fish would be happy under there. Not only for hiding, but for eating. Don't ask me how I knew this. I just did.'

  'Magic?' I pressed.

  'Oh, no. It's just that I... suddenly thought like a fish. And I knew I liked it under there.'

  His line jerked, once, twice. In less time than it takes to draw a breath, he was fighting to pull it in. I almost reached in to help him, but he looked so capable, his hands sure and strong as he played the line, that I held back. A few minutes later there was an enormous fish gasping its last on the deck.

  'You see?' Gamelan said.

  'I never argue with dinner,' I answered.

  'In that case,' he said, 'why don't you join me this evening? I promise you will dine well.'

  I accepted, knowing there was more to the invitation than eating. Later that night I crowded into the little space the ship's carpenter had abandoned to make way for the Evocator's necessities. The cabin was full of all kinds of strange devices, illuminated books, vials, jars and pouches of mysterious things. But the smell of the fish cooking over a small brazier overpowered my curiosity. I was ravenous. We tucked into the food with no preamble.

  When we were done, I loosened my belt, and sighed. 'If you were to tell me in a previous life you were the head cook for the richest family in Orissa, I'd not doubt it for a minute.' I picked a final bit of meat from the backbone. 'I'm learning you are a man of many talents, wizard.'

  Gamelan laughed. 'The cooking was by magic,' he confessed. 'I have a little demon I lured from some magician's kitchen. A copper pincher, apparently. My bargain with the demon is to provide him with as much as he can hold, and he cooks in return.'

  'I thought magic was supposed to be used only for important things,' I teased.

  Gamelan grinned through his beard. 'Eating is important,' he said.

  I hoisted a bottle of brandy I'd brought along. 'If you fetch me two cups,' I said, 'we'll partake of another kind of spirit. After a drink or two, perhaps you won't be so shy about your fisherman's beginnings.'

  'I wasn't being shy,' he said, but he got the cups just the same and I filled them up. We drank. 'Actually,' Gamelan said after the first jolt had settled and he'd mated it with another sip, 'I thought my tale would best be told in a quieter moment. For I believe it has some bearing on your own circumstances.'

  I was surprised. 'Me? In what way?'

  'You have the Gift,' he said, flatly.

  'That's nonsense,' I said, a bit angry. I didn't have to ask what he meant. 'My gifts are physical, and hard won at that.'

  'Deny it all you like, Rali,' Gamelan answered. 'I know it to be true. Remember casting the bones in Jinnah's tent? Also, it was more than fighting skills and good fortune that allowed you to kill one Archon and put another to flight. I tell you, no ordinary person could have -accomplished it.'

  'I don't even like wizards,' I said, still hot. 'Present company included, if the talk keeps shifting this way.'

  Gamelan took no offence. 'Your brother, Halab, had the Gift. Do you deny that?'

  I couldn't. According to Amalric, if Halab had been allowed to live, he might have been one of the greatest Evocators in our people's history. But the Evocators, before Amalric tamed them, were jealous of his power and made certain he failed a deadly test of his skills.

  'He was the only one in my family,' I said.

  'Really?' Gamelan pressed. 'I sensed a small talent in Amalric himself. So there's another.'

  I gave a violent shake of my head. 'I don't believe it. Besides, if it's so common in the Antero family, why haven't there been others in the past? Others as strong as Halab?'

  'Are you certain there haven't?'

  'Of course I am. No one in my father's—'

  Gamelan broke in. 'I know that. But what of your mother and her family?'

  I was silent. There had always been something about my mother. Sometimes she seemed as if she lived slightly apart from us all. Almost if she were on a... higher level? As for her family, she rarely spoke of the folk she came from in that small village where she'd met and been wooed by my father.

  'I don't know,' I finally admitted. But my voice was so low, I could hardly hear it myself.

  'But I do,' Gamelan said. 'That's why my brother wizards were so wary of your family. I cast spells once, and learned your grandmother was a famous witch, well known in the villages around her, as was her mother before her.'

  I accepted his statement as truth. Why would he lie? But I didn't like it.

  'Still,' I said. 'That doesn't mean I was so cursed.'

  'It will be a curse,' Gamelan answered, 'If you continue to fight it. Only tragedy can come from your present course. And I do not mean only for yourself. But for others around you.'

  I did not answer. My temper was a blade's breadth from snapping, and I was full of confusion and dread. I drained my cup and filled it with brandy again.

  'Now, you should hear my story,' Gamelan said. 'For you should know the man you see is not the man I desired with all my heart to be.'

  I drank ... and listened.

  'I was born on a fishing boat,' he began. 'All my family were fisherfolk. They'd fished our blessed river from the time when Orissa was only a village.'

  I knew the kind of people he meant. They spent all their lives on the river, only coming in to repair their boats, sell their fish, and take on supplies. At night, they tied their boats close so they were like small towns, going from one to another as easily as from house to house. Sometimes, late, I'd heard them laughing, and the strains of the music they favoured. They always seemed so free of care that on certain evenings I longed to join them, to abandon the city for the river.

  'The river is in our blood,' Gamelan continued. 'No. It is our blood. The river bears us up, and carries us away from our troubles. It is our food, our drink. Our ... everything. And a river is always so full of mysteries .... dangerous mysteries at times... that one can never be bored. What is in its depths can never be completely known. It was that life to which I was born. It was that life I desired above all else. And do so to this day.'

  He drank, yellow eyes turned inward. 'But I had the Talent,' he said. 'No one really noticed at first. But from the time when I was very small, if I touched the most hideously fouled net, the tangles would fall away, and the net would be as good as if it were newly made. There were other signs, small at first. My family and friends learned if they lost an object, they only had to ask and I could instantly go to it. Sometimes, when I had a childish tantrum, the fire in the hearth would rise most frighteningly. Objects would be hurled about, with no visible hand to throw them. Glass would shatter for no reason. And there might be pounding... knocking... on the bottom of the hull as if there were a man there, signalling.'

  'There, you see!' I blurted. 'Nothing like that has ever happened to me! So, I'm an ordinary mortal after all.'

  Gamelan paid no mind, but went on. At first his family was proud -especially when they found he could heal small wounds with a touch. His odd gift, plus his budding skills as a fisherman who always returned with a catch, and could lead others to rich grounds during difficult times, made them the envy of their friends and relations. At eighteen summers his future was assured. His father was about to give him his first boat, and everyone agreed Gamelan would someday be their leader. Then he fell in love.

  'I remember Riana as the most beautiful young woman who had ever graced a man's dreams. We believed there never could have been such lovers as us, and swore to all who would listen that the gods, when they made us, had decreed neither of us would be whole unless we were joined for ever.'

  I refilled our cups as he reflected. Then he said: 'I suppose most people would say we were only suffering the symptoms of our fevered age. But I do not think so. I do no
t think so. However, it soon became plain the gods lied. They had other plans.'

  I thought of my long-dead Otara, and almost wept when I remembered what it was like to love and be loved so completely.

  'One day we witnessed an accident. A young city woman, pleasure-boating with her family, let her arm dangle in the water while the fool who steered their craft ran too close to a merchant ship. Her arm was ripped away. My boat was the first to answer her screams. I recall the horror and pain in her face as the blood gushed. She cried out to me: 'But I'm only sixteen.' I saw the severed arm lying next to her and I snatched it up and pressed it against the stump. Then I prayed, oh, how I prayed. I don't know to whom, but all I could think of was that poor girl whose life was ebbing away. I heard a shout, then a cry from her, and I opened my eyes and saw she was whole again. The arm had been reattached and was as good as it had been moments before. Her family and companions praised me and tried to get my name. I was so shaken by the miracle I became frightened and leaped into my boat and fled as fast as the sail would take me.'

  A few days later, Gamelan met his first wizard.

  'For a boy with his head full of silly notions, he was quite disappointing,' Gamelan said. 'I'd expected a fellow who looks much as I do now. Old. Bearded. With eyes that would freeze an oxen in his path.'

  I glanced at Gamelan's strange yellow eyes. Just now, they were as kindly and warm as a kitchen fire.

  Gamelan caught my look. 'They can get meaner,' he said.

  I laughed, then eased back. The tale he spun was so intriguing, I forgot my own worries.

  'But, back to my first Evocator,' Gamelan went on. 'He was quite young, handsome. And rich. He was brother of the young woman I had saved. His name was Yuloor, and he was a wizard of small talent, but enormous ambition. He wanted to reward me for helping his sister by sponsoring me to the Council of Evocators. Soon I would wear a wizard's robes and would be respected by everyone in the city. But I wanted nothing of this. For I knew once I left the river, I would never be able to return.

  'Yuloor admitted this, but said it was a small sacrifice and my family would gready benefit. More importantly, it was my sacred duty to the people of Orissa not to waste a talent given to so few. He wooed me and my family for many a day, until finally I believed I had no other choice. To do otherwise would doom me and my family to a wretched existence, caused by that magical spirit inside me gnawing and clawing to get out. Finally I agreed.'

  'I suspect Yuloor actually saw his chance in you,' I said. 'The real reward was to be his.'

  'Quite right,' Gamelan said. 'He became my mentor, and as I rose through the levels of knowledge and power, he rose with me. He died not long ago. He was quite a happy man.'

  'But what of Riana?' I asked.

  'She was lost to me,' he answered. 'Our marriage was forbidden. After alL how can an Evocator marry a fisherwoman?'

  I blurted: 'Didn't you argue? Didn't you fight?'

  Gamelan sighed. 'Yes. But it was hopeless. I was told quite plainly what would happen to her if I continued to defy them. I suppose my loss is one reason I achieved the powers that I now call my own. I've never loved another. So there was nothing to keep me from my studies, until they finally consumed me so that there was nothing left of the fisherman. Only a wizard.'

  I said: 'And this is the life you want me to take up? I'm happy as I am.'

  'Are you, Rali?' he asked.

  I thought of the dream I had of Tries's betrayal. I could not answer yes.

  'Anyway, happiness is beside the point,' Gamelan said. 'You must follow your weird, or suffer the consequences.'

  'Consequences?' I snapped. 'That's what your lying friend Yuloor said.'

  And Gamelan answered: 'Ah. But that part was no lie at all.'

  'I'm a soldier,' I muttered. 'Nothing more.' My words were slurred. I was drunk. It wasn't the brandy that made me so.

  'Will you think on it?' Gamelan asked.

  'That's all I'll do,' I said. My mood was evil, hating.

  'We'll talk again tomorrow,' Gamelan said.

  I said nothing. But I thought, if I had real magical power, tomorrow would never come.

  Well, it did come, Scribe; but the day wasn't spent as either of us had expected.

  Each day after the noontide sighting, the wizard was rowed over to the admiral's galley to confer on the course they believed the Archon fleet was on. Navigational tools were matched against Gamelan's magical skills, and the bearing was set. Signal flags announced the course, and each ship made any corrections necessary.

  On this particular day, however, the routine changed. Corais and I were discussing the progress of our recruits' training when we heard the lookout shout. I glanced around and saw with mild surprise that Gamelan's visit with Cholla Yi had been cut short and his little boat put out for our ship. Corais and I idly strolled to the rail to see what was happening. There seemed to be much excitement - Gamelan was pointing impatiendy at our ship and urging his rowers to make haste.

  'A wizard in a hurry,' Corais said, drily, 'rarely bodes well.'

  I heard Polillo shout and I looked to see some fifty yards off the bow of Gamelan's boat a huge bird with leathery wings struggling with a sea lizard over a large fish. There was no danger to Gamelan, so I was quickly caught up in the fight between two such unlikely adversaries, as was the rest of the ship.

  The lizard was twice my size, but the bird was not intimidated. It had caught the fish in its heavy tooth-lined beak and had been about to swoop up with its prize when the lizard had struck. Both creatures had strong holds on either end of the fish, one dragging down, the other up.

  'A silver piece on the bird,' Polillo cried.

  But there were no takers for everyone seemed to find favour with the strange creature from the sky, shouting and cheering its efforts. We groaned as the bird suddenly let loose.

  'Two silver pieces against one!' Polillo jumped the odds as the lizard rolled back, the fish gripped in its jaws. She was deluged with shouted offers. I could see from her wide grin she believed the bird was as clever as it was bold. Sure enough, as the lizard lay there, stunned by its sudden victory, the bird swooped back and slashed its white belly with its hooked talons. The lizard screamed, curling and flopping in agony. Instantly, the bird grabbed the fish and shot for the skies, to cheers, and some groans from those who'd taken Polillo's bet.

  'I know a fighter when I see one,' Polillo gloated, diving in amongst her new debtors. 'Let's see the colour of your coin, my friends. White metal only. There's no room for copper in my chest.'

  We were all exhilarated by the struggle, as if we'd been in on the fight ourselves.

  'Now, that's a good omen if ever I saw one,' Corais said.

  I wanted to agree. But my natural caution - some brand it cynicism - crowded in. Perhaps it was a good omen. On the other hand, from the point of view of the sea lizard, it could be a warning.

  A swish of robes brought me back, and I turned to find Gamelan hobbling towards us as fast as his old legs could carry him. He'd reached our galley during the middle of the fight and had boarded with little or no help.

  'I'm sorry ...' I started to say, but the wizard brushed my apology aside with an impatient gesture.

  'The Archon's fleet has stopped,' he said.

  I goggled and made the usual silly noises of an officer who's become so used to routine that she's forgotten her profession is founded on surprise.

  'I don't know how long his fleet will tarry, or what his trouble is,' Gamelan said, 'but all signs show he's lying as if becalmed or anchored.'

  'Perhaps he's been forced to stop for repairs,' I ventured.

  Gamelan nodded, his beard bristled with energy, and his yellow eyes danced like twin suns. 'That is what the admiral and I surmised,' he said.

  He unrolled a small, crude chart I'd never seen before. 'Master Phocas found this among his other charts. It's supposed to show what lies beyond our master chart, although he gave it to me saying he had many doubts as to its t
ruth, since he was given it in a wine shop rather than buying it from a chandlery.'

  Corais and I bent close to see. Gamelan jabbed a finger at a small group of islands near the westernmost edge of the map. 'This is where his fleet appears to be headed. Whether or not the islands can provision him, no one knows. Cholla Yi says that even the existence of those islands is speculative.'

  I saw a small symbol next to the islands warning that the map-maker was relying on rumour, rather than fact, regarding those tiny dots. Still, blood began to hammer at my ears. I said: 'If there are no islands, why else would he be making for that exact point?'

  The wizard twisted his beard in delight. 'Why else, indeed?' he asked.

  Corais laughed. 'The next time I see a wizard in a hurry, I won't be so quick to fear for our luck.'

  'Don't dare the gods,' I warned, only half in jest. 'First we have to catch him. Then we have to fight him.'

  Polillo, who'd come up behind us, broke in: 'Did I hear someone say fight? Or was it my imagination?'

  'No, my friend,' I answered. 'It was not your imagination. And, yes, you finally get to fight.'

  'Good,' she answered. 'For a while I'd been wondering if I'd fallen into the company of cravens. My axe is thirsty.'

  The fight did not come that quickly. As I'd warned Corais, first we had to catch the Archon. His ships had resumed their flight, still toward those possibly mythic islands. We rowed with a will, the drums around our fleet hammering in constant double time, the oarsmen digging in so deeply with each pull their oars could be seen to bend. The fleet skimmed through the seas so swiftly that sometimes it seemed the hulls barely had time to get wet. We rowed like that for two days, then, after only a few hours rest, for two more.

  The tension hung so close no one remarked when we passed the westernmost edge of our master chart and crossed into unmapped seas.

  On the fifth day, we sighted the Archon.

  Seven

  The Sea on Fire

  As HARD AS we had pressed before, we pressed harder still and within two hours the fleeing Lycanthians could now be glimpsed from the foredeck. I even thought I could distinguish sails of individual ships. The deck was crowded - there was myself, Corais and Polillo, as well as Captain Stryker and Gamelan. Then Cholla Yi arrived, unbidden, for an impromptu conference. The air crackled with excitement and tension.